Decade of disasters: Wildfires, a gas leak, earthquakes in Southern California

A disaster is never more than the failure of aging infrastructure, a slip of tectonic plate or a spark away from affecting thousands of Southern California residents.

Such disasters often come with long-term consequences and can be drivers for change and improvements to keep us safe.

Here’s a look at a trio of  such events that made headlines: a natural-gas leak in Porter Ranch, a pair of earthquakes in the High Desert, and increasing wildfire danger.

Story: Aliso Canyon Gas Leak

When: 2015-2016

What happened: It started in October 2015, but by the time the Aliso Canyon gas leak in the hills above Porter Ranch was capped the following February, more than 100,000 metric tons of methane had sprayed into the atmosphere, thousands were forced from their homes and a community was demanding accountability from a utility giant still trying to figure out what happened. As the methane spewed, schools were evacuated. Many people complained of headaches, bloody noses and other illness caused by what scientists called the largest such leak recorded in the United States.

The gas leak at Aliso Canyon didn’t end with SoCal Gas capping its well, though. The event spawned loud calls for shutting down Aliso Canyon and its wells, prompted hundreds of lawsuits with thousands of plaintiffs– including from first-responders — and put a spotlight on the utility and Los Angeles County. Three years later the county announced a health study to examine just how hazardous the toxins spewed into the air and used to clean up the site were on the surrounding population. It also produced an investigation into what caused the well to fail — and its results, released in May 2019, painted a picture of a SoCal Gas that was reactive rather than proactive in managing the integrity of its aging wells.

— Ryan Carter

Story: Ridgecrest earthquakes

When: July 4 and 5, 2019

What happened: A 7.1 magnitude earthquake on July 5, preceded by a 6.4 magnitude temblor on July 4, shook the High Desert towns of Ridgecrest and Trona. Thousands of aftershocks followed.

The July 5 quake, felt from the Orange County coastline and Sacramento in California  to Las Vegas in Nevada, was one of a dozen in California since 1857 that seismologists said measured more than 7.0.

The epicenter of the larger quake was 10 miles from Ridgecrest, a Kern County city of 33,723.  It also did extensive damage in Trona, a San Bernardino County town where less than 2,000 people live. Flight operations at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake did not resume until July 15. In August, it was estimated the base sustained  $5.2 billion in damage, including $2.2 billion just for buildings.

Separately, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated shortly after the quake that there was damage of more than $1 billion for Ridgecrest area.

Experts agreed that the relatively remote location of the quakes in the Searles Valley and its small populations spared the area from a much worse scenario.

As it was, power was knocked out to Ridgecrest, mobile homes were knocked from foundations, chimneys and brick structures cracked or fell, and fires were ignited from leaking natural gas lines. Open trenches were formed in the desert, roadways buckled and cracked, including Highway 178, and at least one road was knocked out of alignment.

In Trona, the only fresh-water line to the town was broken and water service was not restored until July 11. More than 30 homes were red-tagged.

Few injuries and no deaths were reported, although authorities in Nye County, Nevada said it was possible the July 4 quake rocked an old-model SUV off its jacks and crushed a man working beneath it in the town of Pahrump. There were no witnesses to the event.

— Richard K. De Atley

Story: Wildfires

When: Throughout the decade

What happened: Wildfires are always a concern. But in the past decade, firefighters are saying, they have encountered blazes that burn hotter, move faster and endanger more lives than in the past as drought and tree-killing insects created more tinder-dry vegetation and more people moved into rural areas.

With so many people escaping the urban sprawl, more homes than ever are immediately threatened upon the fire’s first spark because of the lack of buffer zones between structures and vegetation. Those homes, of course, require electricity. And the utilities that have strung electricity lines into those rural areas have come under heavy criticism recently for sparking powerlines touching off fires — and for what some homeowners see as random power shutoffs in areas where utilities fear high winds could knock down their lines.

More people and homes in non-forested areas have become at risk at times of the year once thought to be mostly immune from destructive blazes. Fire officials no longer refer to late spring through late fall as a “fire season;” it’s now a year-round season, they say. And these fires create other problems, such as flooding and mudslides when the vegetation that holds hillsides together dies as happened with the 2018 Holy fire in Riverside and Orange counties.

The past decade has seen, in recorded California history, two of the top 20 deadliest wildfires; seven of the top 20 largest fires by acreage; and 10 of the top 20 most destructive by structures burned, according to Cal Fire statistics. The most destructive fires included the Woosley fire in Ventura and Los Angeles counties in 2018 (1,643 structures burned) and the Thomas fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties in 2017 (1,063). Investigators said six of the most destructive fires in the decade were caused by powerline failure.

The fire threat has triggered calls for changes to forest management, where and how homes are built and maintenance of electrical lines.

— Brian Rokos